Retirement Celebration for Divinity School Professor William Turner Jr.

The Duke Divinity School Office of the Dean will sponsor a retirement celebration in honor of William Turner Jr., Ph.D., James T. and Alice Mead Cleland Professor of the Practice of Preaching.

“Making Sense of the Sojourn: the Black Church’s Witness into the Future” will have contributions from Dr. C. G. Newsome, former president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; Dr. Eric Williams, curator of religion in the Center for the Study of African American Religious Life, National Museum of African American History and Culture; Dr. Willie Jennings, associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale Divinity School; Dr. Genna Rae McNeil, professor of history at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill; Dr. Harold Wallace, former chair of Duke Divinity School’s Board of Visitors; and Duke Divinity School faculty including Dr. Charles Campbell, professor of homiletics; Dr. Valerie Cooper, associate professor of religion and society and Black Church studies; and Dr. Luke Powery, dean of Duke University Chapel and associate professor of homiletics.

The day will begin at 9:00 a.m. with a worship service with Dr. Powery preaching.

Dr. Turner states “the Black Church Studies movement has profoundly affected the doing of theology and theological education in ways that are utterly essential for the way forward for the church in the 21st century. It has been an incubator for many of the questions and issues that are faced by the world.” The lecture, remarks, and panel discussion that follow the worship service will explore aspects of this topic.